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Vapes do not harm pregnant women or their baby, study finds
Using e-cigarettes or nicotine patches while pregnant does not harm the mother or baby, research shows.
Researchers at Queen Mary University of London used data from more than 1,100 pregnant smokers attending 23 hospitals in England and one stop-smoking service in Scotland to compare pregnancy outcomes.
The study concluded that regular use of nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) during pregnancy is not associated with adverse pregnancy events or poor pregnancy outcomes.
Almost half (47 per cent) used vapes and just over a fifth (21 per cent) used nicotine patches.
They even found that vapes lessened respiratory infections, possibly because their main ingredients have antibacterial effects.
Regular use of nicotine products was not associated with any adverse effects on mothers or their babies.
Prof Tim Coleman, from the University of Nottingham’s Smoking in Pregnancy Research Group, which led trial recruitment, said: “Smoking in pregnancy is a massive public health problem and nicotine-containing aids can help pregnant women to stop smoking, but some clinicians are reticent about providing NRT or e-cigarettes in pregnancy.
“This study provides further, reassuring evidence that tobacco smoke chemicals rather than nicotine are responsible for smoking-related harms, so using nicotine-containing aids to quit is vastly preferable to continuing to smoke when pregnant.”
Source: The Telegraph, 17 January 2024
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Illegal vapes worth almost £250,000 seized across Liverpool
Tens of thousands of illegal vapes with a street value of almost a quarter of a million pounds have been seized across Liverpool in the last eight months.
A series of stings is continuing throughout the city by Liverpool Council’s alcohol and tobacco unit, Merseyside Police and Public Health Liverpool in a bid to clamp down on the sale of counterfeit vaping products. The latest operation has led to the seizure of more than 1,000 contraband vapes with a street value of £12,000.
All inspected premises receive a closure order warning letter spelling out the consequences if they re-stock or re-offend in the future. Conditions relating to the retail of vapes are set out clearly in the Tobacco and Related Products Regulations 2016.
The requirements restrict e-cigarette tanks to a capacity of no more than 2ml, providing a maximum of 600 puffs, and restrict the maximum volume of nicotine-containing e-liquid for sale in one refill container to 10ml.
Councillor Harry Doyle, cabinet member for culture and public health, who attended the raids, said: “Removing these illegal products from sale in our city is a big priority as we know the damage it's doing, especially to young people. I would urge smokers who chose vaping as a way of quitting cigarettes to buy them from reputable dealers.
“The team do a brilliant job clamping down on this illegal trade and they have further operations planned so our message to those involved in illegal trading of vapes is clear – don’t do it or expect a visit.”
Source: Liverpool Echo, 9 January 2024
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US cancer death rates down but younger Americans see rise in certain cancers
Fewer Americans are dying of cancer, part of a decades-long trend that began in the 1990s as more people quit smoking and doctors screened earlier for certain cancers.
However, the American Cancer Society warned that those gains are threatened by an increase in cancers among people younger than 55, in particular cervical and colorectal cancer, and by the continued disparities between white Americans and people of colour.
Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the United States behind heart disease, with smoking a major contributor to both causes of death. As more Americans have quit smoking, rates of and deaths from smoking-related cancers have experienced a long decline.
Problematically, younger people have seen a steady increase in cancer diagnoses through the same period, with colorectal cancer of particular concern to researchers. The rate of people younger than 55 diagnosed with colorectal cancer has increased 1%-2% annually since the 1990s, and is now the first leading cause of cancer death for men and second for women (behind breast cancer).
Writing in Nature, a group of specialist doctors summarized the risk factors that researchers are now examining, including “a Western-style diet, obesity, physical inactivity and antibiotic use, especially during the early prenatal to adolescent periods of life”, that changes the gut microbiome.
Another concern for doctors is widening racial disparities and increases in uterine (endometrial) cancer deaths. Black Americans are now twice as likely to die from uterine cancer (9.1 deaths per 100,000 people) than white Americans (4.6 deaths per 100,000 people), with incidence increasing steadily at 2% a year.
Stomach and prostate cancers have also seen widening disparities between white and Black Americans. Similarly, mortality rates for Native Americans are twice that of their white counterparts for liver, stomach and kidney cancers.
Source: The Guardian, 17 January 2024
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